Knowing Better
by ShoeBaby
Summary: Dramione Oneshot- Draco's in love; Hermione's in pain.


(A/N I personally love the head boy/head girl thing that has been so overdone so no giving me a hard time

(A/N I personally love the head boy/head girl thing and I know it's been way overdone but no giving me a hard time!! Oh and I'm making up a new word 'crampedness' which basically means being in a room of uncomfortably little space. This word is found a few paragraphs down and I thought that it might need some explaining for all you stupids out there (It _is _rather self explanatory). Oh, and why am I making up this word you might ask? Because I can.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, I just play with him…teehee.

The chambers for the Head Boy and the Head Girl consisted of a common room, a hallway and the Head Boy's room as well as the Head Girl's room. They each had private bathrooms. Other than passing each other in the common room every now and again they would hardly have to see each other. This was lucky for Hermione (the Head Girl) when Draco Malfoy was unfortunately the Head Boy.

However, instead of going out of his way to run into her and make her life horrible in a way that only a Slytherin can, he seemed to be just as set on avoiding her as she was of avoiding him…interesting. He also seemed quite content in letting Hermione and her friends have the common room while he accepted, without any fuss at all, to walk down to the dungeons to visit with his followers (Draco didn't really have what you would call 'friends'.)

_12:47 am_

She hummed when she studied, whether or not she was conscious of this fact he didn't know, for she always seemed lost in her own happy world when she was doing school work and the humming was probably unintentional. Although he didn't recognize the songs she hummed, for they were most likely muggle tunes, he liked listening. Draco was very aware of every small thing she did and often analyzed them when he couldn't sleep or concentrate in class. He did not analyze in a critical way, but more in the way of making a list of her habits and quirks and categorizing them to be filed away and kept for his own personal reflection at a later date. Another perhaps unconscious habit of hers that he had noticed was that when she was pretending to pay attention to someone, but her attention was elsewhere, she had the habit of saying the word 'certainly' a lot more than is perhaps normal. Draco found Hermione fascinating and was most definitely in love with her.

Tonight, Hermione was working on some assignment in their shared common room at the center table, she was all by herself. Draco was leaning against his door jam listening to her hum. He wasn't about to go out there and join her, as much as he wanted to be closer to her and maybe strike up a conversation; he was far too worried that she would leave. That she would choose the solitary and crampedness of her room over his company. Of course he deserved to be shunned by her after all that he had said and done to her in the past years. He deserved her cold shoulder and much worse. Draco couldn't explain why he had said the things that he had to Hermione and wasn't about to dwell on it, what mattered was that he was a better man now. Perhaps even a good enough man to attract Hermione. He could only hope. But pf course he knew better then to think like this and immediately pushed these thoughts from his head. She would never be his, she deserved better.

From where he was standing Draco could only see Hermione's homework, and her hand scribbling furiously away in her quick yet well-thought out and practised handwriting, in the mirror leaning against the far wall. He knew for a fact that she couldn't seem him and that she thought he was in his room doing his own homework, which he probably should be doing but not bothering because it was for Potions and Snape would hardly mind Draco handing in a few late essays. But then again he was sure Hermione would disapprove of him taking advantage of their potions teacher's favouritism and turned around with a noiseless sigh to do a half-assed attempt at describing the useful qualities of Amortentia. An assignment which Draco believed to be utterly useless, but then again the image of Hermione swooning into his arms was very attractive in his head, perhaps their were some useful qualities…

As he turned to quietly re-enter his private room he heard the walls shifting, allowing someone to enter the common room. Without looking he knew it had to be one of Hermione's friends because as much as his fellow Slytherin's had begged he had not told them the password to enter The Head Rooms. Hermione on the other hand enjoyed her friends coming by to say hello and had told a few Gryffindor's.

"Ermione?" Slurred a very drunken sounding boy.

Ron tripped slightly over the carpet but managed to find his way to the couch where Hermione was seated without falling flat on his face.

"Ron what are you doing here? It's so late, and you're drunk!"

Draco couldn't really see what was happening but Hermione sounded angry and that was a good sign for him, maybe she would dump him? He could only see their legs in the mirror but he didn't like how close Weasel was to Hermione and it looked like she was trying to back away and he wouldn't let her.

"You're my girlfriend." Ron practically shouted, his eyes glazed from an excessive amount of alcohol, "And I want sex."

"Get out Ron, Draco is just in the other room and I don't want him hearing this, come back tomorrow when you are sober to apologize." Hermione stated clearly, this was not the first time Ron had shown up drunken and demanded sex. She knew how to deal with him but Draco was worried anyway.

"No, I'm not apologizin' and I want it now, ferret can fuckin' rot 'n hell!" Draco could see the spluttering Ron fumbling to undo his pants. If he touched Hermione he would have to kill him.

"Get out now Ronald Weasly!" Hermione hissed threateningly, most likely reaching for her wand.

Draco stepped closer, moving farther from his door, ready to step in if Ron didn't leave soon. Cursing himself for having left his own wand in his room but not risking taking his eyes off the mirror to go and get it/

Ron's already flushed cheeks became a repulsive purplish colour and he screwed up his features, angry that he was being denied his drunken pleasure.

"You little bitch." And then he hit her.

Ron punched her right in the mouth, hard. Hermione fell to the ground and Ron reached down to grab her hair. Draco ran across the room, smashing into Ron and knocking him to the ground. But not before Ron got in a few more punches to her face and some kicks to Hermione's ribs.

Pinning him to the ground Draco pummelled his fists into Ron's face. If Ron had been sober it might have been a fair fight. Ron had about three inches on Draco but then Draco had the toned body of an athlete and in Ron's state he could barely count to five let alone defend himself. Soon, Ron's face was covered in blood.

Draco couldn't feel his fists, he just kept hitting the bastard, wanting to kill him, to cause him so much pain. Now he was glad he'd left his wand in his room, he wanted to use his fists. Finally, Draco managed to pull himself off his victim and lifted the bloody, semi-conscious boy up and dragged him to the door, throwing him out of the room and into the corridor outside. Quickly changing the password so that if by some rare chance Ron could manage to stand up and speak, he would not be allowed to re-enter.

Heaving by the door Draco rested his forehead against the cool grey brick. His entire body numb with adrenaline and anger. Draco felt nauseas as the bloodlust left his body. He used to feel good after he beat someone up, powerful, but now he couldn't get the image of Hermione on the ground out of his head. Slowly, Draco pushed himself from the wall and turned around to the brunette who was sitting calmly on the edge of the couch and looking at the ground where there were two small puddles of her blood. Her hair covered his face but from the way her shoulders were shaking he has sure that she was crying.

He knelt down in front of her, taking her attention away from the blood. Hermione tried to stand and leave, got to her room. But Draco caught her with one arm around her waist, careful not to touch where he was sure Ron had kicked her, he pulled her back down to the couch. Pushing the hair out of her eyes he gently took her face in his hands. She winced, her lip was split open and sticky, wet blood coated her swelling chin. There was also a gash above her left eye, the blood from which had matted into her hair. Tears poured silently down her cheeks.

"Has he ever hit you before?" Draco croaked softly, his throat dry from the rush of a fight.

Slowly Hermione nodded. "Once" her eyes were so full of shame and hurt, it broke his heart. "When he was drunk, I picked a fight."

"No." Draco didn't want to hear this; didn't she know how special she was? How incredibly beautiful? "You deserve better, I won't ever let him hit you again, I promise."

Hermione closed her eyes. She wrapped her arms across her stomach and doubled forward, leaning into him and pressing her face into his shoulder. Fresh tears soaked into his shirt. Draco softly folded his arms around Hermione's small and fragile torso; so scared that he might break her already bruised body. He held her for a long time and neither of them said anything. Suddenly Draco became very aware of the blood that was continuing to stream from her forehead.

"I need to take you to see Madam Pomfrey." Draco, suddenly urgent, lifted her from his chest and tried to coax her to her feet, but Hermione just shook her head.

"I can do it myself." The tears had stopped and even though her face was swollen and bloody Hermione stood up tall, picked up her wand and turned towards her room.

"Wait." Draco reached out to grab her arm, not wanting her to leave him and feeling horribly selfish. "I could help." He desperately wanted to stay with her and comfort her; fix her.

"I'll be alright, get some sleep and I-" Hermione's tongue stumbled, for once in her life she appeared to be at a loss for words. "I guess I'll see you in the morning." Then she turned and hurried to her room closing the door firmly behind herself.

"I love you…" A small whisper, lost in the echo of Hermione's door being slammed.

Dazed and unsure of what had just happened Draco stumbled to his bedroom. Lying on his bed, Amortentia completely forgotten he stared at the ceiling and wished he knew what to do.

_Earlier that Evening_

Ron sat at the bar cradling his sixth beer. Ron had always been a guy who could hold his liquor well, or so he liked to think, but he had to admit that his vision was starting to get a little blurry and his stomach was beginning to complain. There were a lot of people in the bar tonight and the music was really loud. Taking a swig from his bottle he looked around.

Dean and Seamus were messing around near the muggle jukebox. Ron had no idea how it had gotten here, this wasn't a muggle bar or anything. Some song Ron had never heard before was playing and he liked it, it was catchy but he was pretty sure he would have absolutely no recollection of it in the morning.

Continuing to scan hazily around the bar he saw someone who could be Harry…did he come here with Harry? Ok this had to be his last beer. For life.

"Harry?" Ron called out, his tongue thick with liquor.

"No you dumb shit, don't you recognize your own brother?" Turning his attention away from the could-be Harry, Ron saw George sitting on the barstool next to him.

"George." Ron stated, not feeling particularly articulate at the moment.

"Fred." Corrected the not yet tipsy Red-head, he had just arrived and so was still sober enough to enjoy watching his piss drunk younger brother struggle to sit up straight on his seat.

"No, I'm Ron." Ron replied slowly, his mouth struggling to form the correct words.

"Yes, well done." Chuckled Fred, ordering himself a beer. "Now go back to Hogwarts and get some sleep. You're a disgrace and I am ashamed to call you my kinsmen."

"Ok." That made sense, he got up to leave and Fred just shook his head and wandered off to try and seduce a group of girls on the other side of the bar.

But as Ron turned back to the bar to leave a tip he was roughly pushed back down, (well it probably wouldn't have been so rough if he weren't so wobbly and unbalanced) and a leg was swung up over his lap, straddling him. The short skirt the girl was wearing got hiked up during this manoeuvre, revealing tiny black panties. Ron's jaw fell open, and he was unable to tear his eyes away from the exposed underwear.

Soft white hands with sparkly pink nails ran down his chest and into his pants. Ron moaned. He was instantly hard, which was impressive considering his blood alcohol level, as the roaming fingers found him and started to caress and rub his already aching dick he reached up and grabbed the tiny hips to pull them closer.

Looking up all that Ron saw were too big twinkling brown eyes before a tongue was shoved into his mouth. Pulling and biting at his lips as if she were trying to suck the life right out of him, and all the while her skilful hands working away in his shorts.

This was all way to fast for Ron's brain to handle in his current condition and he momentarily forgot how to breathe. Finding his own hands he managed to push the life-sucking lips away long enough to grab a quick gulp of air before he was pulled back under.

"Hermione…" Ron moaned into the mouth of his attacker.

"Excuse me?" Lavender Brown pushed herself away from Ron, removing her hand from his pants and stepping back and thrusting out her hips indignantly, she did not look impressed. "What did you just call me?"

"I gotta go" Ron stumbled from his stool and did his best to run from the bar. He had just made out with Lavender fucking Brown; that was not good. He was dating Hermione now and things were actually going really well. God he was such a fuck up, he knew better then to drink that much. Running down the street Ron tripped a few times, getting mud all over the front of his pants. He had to fix things, somehow undo what he had just done or make sure that Hermione never found out. But the inner workings of his brain that processed thought weren't really working for him right now.

Stopping at a corner to catch his breath Ron guiltily looked down at his crotch. He was still really hard.

His throbbing dick suddenly gave him an idea, a perfect idea. Or at least in his drunken, horny state of mind it was a brilliant idea that would magically fix everything. He had to go find Hermione.

_1:15 am_

Sitting alone in front of her mirror Hermione couldn't stop crying. When she had been in Draco's arms everything had stopped and had been forgotten; the pain, the tears, and even the memory of Ron's face, contorted with rage. But now that she was in her room by herself and looking at the damage that had been done to her face she couldn't stop herself from sobbing.

In the mirror all she saw were bloodshot eyes surrounded by swollen purple bruises. Her usually wild hair was plastered to her head with blood which had now started to dry in disgusting brown streaks down her face and on her neck. Her breathing came in shallow gasps and a stinging pain echoed each intake of breath. How many times had he hit her? She looked as if she had been attacked by a half-dozen rabid Slytherins.

Hermione reached for her wand on the dresser and groaned when the pain in her ribs shot through her arms and sent needles of pain into her brain. She couldn't believe she hadn't had her wand with her! If she had she could have hexed him as soon as he came in, this was all her fault. And she knew better then to fight with him when he was like that, what was she thinking! She could have let him take her to her bedroom and then used her wand to stupefy him or something. She knew better!

Sighing, Hermione pointed the wand at her face. But apparently she didn't, she didn't know better then to date an abusive jerk and she didn't know better then to dump him the first time he'd hit her over a month ago! Flicking her wrist and mumbling incantations under her breath, the swelling started going down and the angry purples and blacks turned back into her normal pale fleshy tones. But her irises were still red and the tears still poured from her heartbroken eyes. Hermione had always been particularly skilful with healing charms but this was the first time she had ever had to use them on herself.

With the bruises and cuts on her face fixed up she turned to her ribs. It hurt to lift her arms but she just had to grit her teeth and bear it so she could take off her shirt. Peeling the bloodied white tank t-shirt over her head Hermione put it straight into the waste basket. It was ripped, bloodied and would forever be associated with tonight in her mind. Standing in front of a mirror Hermione was pretty sure that she knew why she was having trouble breathing. Ribs had most likely been broken; under Ron's feet.

Hermione cringed when she thought this and immediately pushed it to the back of her mind and set to work on fixing her ribcage. She had been in so much pain but now it was getting better, at least the physical pain was. When she had done as much as she could to repair herself she took of her jeans and bra and crawled into bad wearing only her underwear and an old tank top.

Closing her eyes she tried to shut off her mind and forget everything for at least one night so she could sleep, she was so incredibly tired. But it refused to quit replaying the incident and as hard as she tried to keep the tears in she couldn't, they escaped, leaking out from behind her tightly closed eyelids and slowly finding their way down to her pillow and leaving damp little puddles on either side of her head. Angrily Hermione sat up and flipped her pillow around and resettled herself onto the dry side. She would not cry, not over him. And she especially didn't want Draco to hear her crying.

As soon as she thought of Draco her heart did a painful little flip in her chest. Hermione lifted her hand and rested it on her chest, feeling her heartbeat. Draco had saved her life, well maybe not her life, she was sure Ron wouldn't have killed her…but she'd never thought he would… No! She would not think about him, it hurt way too much. Instead she allowed herself to contemplate Draco.

Remembering the way his cold grey eyes had softened when he knelt in front of her, and they way his strong, protective arms had felt when they were wrapped around her, how he said that he would never let him hurt her again. So caring and gentle and so very unlike the Malfoy she had always thought she'd known. Opening her eyes, Hermione no longer felt like crying. She could picture his kind face looking down at her; why had she never noticed before how lovely his lips were? And how easily she could get lost in the icy swirl of his eyes? She'd never let herself notice, he had been so cruel to her for so long, he was the enemy. Gently massaging her temples she groaned, of all people she would never have suspected Draco Malfoy would be her knight in shining armour, he was an ass! Of course this year he hadn't really insulted her that much. In fact, she couldn't remember him insulting her in a long time. And the way he had looked at her, the way he had come out of nowhere to rescue her from Ron.

Looking over at her clock she saw it was just past two and she wondered if Draco was sleeping or if he too was lying awake and thinking about her. Suddenly she felt very alone in her cold little bed.

Without thinking she threw back the covers and softly walked to her door. She didn't even bother about putting pants on. She walked to Draco's door and without bothering to knock she tried the handle. Their was no locking spell on his door so she slipped into his room unbothered. His room was almost the mirror image of hers except for of course the colour scheme, her room was done in red and gold and his was coated with green and silver. As she closed the door behind her Draco sat up sharply, reaching for his wand. But his hand froze when he recognized the intruder and her state of undress. From the faint light coming in through his window Hermione could easily read the emotion in his eyes, he loved her. She smiled.

His eyes never left her as she walked to one side of his bed, she could feel them roaming up and down her shivering body and she could feel the physical want. She wanted him too, but not tonight. Tonight she needed him. Crawling under the green sheets she was immediately surrounded by a strong masculine smell. Breathing in deeply her sudden nervousness instantly vanished and she was able to process what she was doing; going to bed with Malfoy. Never saying a word, Draco reached out and took her in his arms, laying her next to him. Letting her rest her head upon his chest. Hermione was able to feel his heartbeat through her cheek and it was rapid, like hers, but it too was slowing. She closed her eyes, and matching her breathing to his, she fell asleep.

**Ok so I wrote this because of another story that has these three characters in it that I'm writing where Hermione and Draco are secretly dating and I was starting to like Ron too much so I had to stop and write this to bring out a little bit of angst and hatred towards him but it ended up being kind of long. But whatever please please review because it brightens up my day and I will love you forever if you do!**


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